Local rock act Frankie McQueen put all of themselves in new album Nightride

Most bands will tell you they put their blood, sweat and tears into a new album.

Very few will tell you they went that extra mile. Or. Um. Fluid.

But Scott Charles, guitarist-vocalist for Calgary blues-rock act Frankie McQueen is more than happy to relate the tale behind the added ingredient that went into the packaging of their new EP Nightride and is actually behind its name.

“I love telling this story,” Charles says with a wide smile, helped by patio sunshine and a pint of Village Brewery beer. “It’s really great.”

It all started with a discussion he was having with the band’s photographer friend, Keith Skrastins, with whom Frankie McQueen has had a relationship with for much of their seven-year career. Charles was expressing his wish that the cover for the new EP be shot on film and be as natural as possible, which led into the shooter explaining some research he’d been doing into the developing of film, and an old-school technique that used bovine and equine urine.

Skrastins had, it turns out, been experimenting with his own, er, compound No. 1, and the musician liked the idea that his and his bandmates’ bladders would be tapped in order for them to become “chemically bonded to the record.”

Charles own research led him to discover the process would apparently produce silver nitride (I’ll take his word) which then led to a twist with the album title, Nightride.

It’s probably better than any of the other alternatives that might spring to mind, and, actually, it’s rather fitting because the record also has the added of marking the trio’s territory in the local rock scene. Or rather, dispelling any notions or lingering perceptions of the area they dwell and officially announcing what they are.

Again, after seven years, several lineup changes and the switching up of other external forces, Frankie McQueen are pleased that Nightride closes the chapter on the poppier style of rock that nonetheless helped them build a fan base and a following, not to mention a win in the Amp Radio band competition, when the station was the less glossy Fuel.

They are, Charles notes, “completely different,” with the cementing of the band as a three-piece — drummer Connor Muth and bassist Corey Adams — over a year ago, after the release of their second, somewhat less satisfying EP, acting as the catalyst to stop listening to others and focus on what they wanted to do.

“We were being put into a box by the people we were working with and being told that things were supposed to happen a certain way. That sort of built up in me,” he says, noting that he’d developed something of a “chip on his shoulder” when it came to where their career was being steered.

“If anyone knows me personally, I always hate being told what to do. I don’t want to come across as a snot-nosed rebel or anything like that, but I just don’t like being told that things are a certain way or that I have to do them a certain way. Not to say that we’re breaking new ground but it’s just nice to do what you want.”

Nightride shows off a crunchier, more urgent, more grinding and rock ’n’ roll version of the band, with the guitars, percussion (cowbell!) and Charles’s cool, swaggering vox connecting with every punch they throw.

Freed of any outside forces, with this record they wanted “to capture the live energy, keep in some mistakes. We definitely wanted to keep it raw and nasty sounding and not make it out to seem we’re perfect,” he says, noting that producer Kirill Telichev certainly helped, letting the band explore that sloppier side while still giving them guidance and advice when needed.

“Every idea was respected or tried, which it’s really, really nice to be in that environment ... I just don’t want to be s — t on.”

Which brings us, handily, back to the photo that appears on the front of Nightride. Yes, it does indeed feature a little added chemical reaction from the three, uh, members.

And, out of the many, many, many questions you, dear reader, probably have, let’s save you the trouble and skip straight to the logistics.

“It was very, very back-alley collection process,” Charles says and laughs. “There was an iced tea bottle that we all went to the bathroom in — not at the same time, obviously. But we collected it and made sure that the cap was on real tight and sent it off to Keith and, ‘Do what you will.’ It’s those kind of weird ideas that I like to hear. I’m glad to be a part of something like that. It’s going to be something we laugh about forever.”

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